How to Create a Family Meeting Agenda

To make a family meeting successful, you need a basic framework to keep it focused. Use our keys here for a family meeting agenda to help you maximize your time and make it a positive space for your family. 

Our Top Family Meeting Agenda Items

When it comes to creating a purposeful family meeting, you want to set an agenda based on the foundational elements of your family and its purpose. Meetings aren’t just for random discussion but rather you want them to be focused on conversation that flows from your values, vision, and mission. Here’s a basic structure we teach families:

• Prayer

Start every meeting with prayer as a way to calm minds and set the tone. Invite a different family member each time to pray as a way to get people engaged, as an idea. Or consider directed prayer, where rather than one person praying aloud, you have a couple topics you pray silently over.

• Review Mission, Vision, Values & Check-In

Start your meeting by reviewing your values, vision, and mission. Repetition is always beneficial. Use it as a starting point for your family check-in as well where people can share how the family is doing in relation to those foundational statements.

• Celebrations & Updates

From there, keep it brief, but have time to share any other updates or celebrations. It’s important to highlight successes and pause to celebrate. We recommend a max of 10 minutes.

• Discussion

This is where the heart of the meeting occurs as you move into whatever topics were needed for discussion. (Goals, communication, generosity plans, etc.) Remember, keep it driven from values, vision, and mission. 

• Action Steps

Lastly, always set next steps from your discussion. You don’t want to let things go unresolved. Whether it’s scheduling an individual conversation or choosing action items for a plan, have clear paths forward identified that everyone agrees on.

• Wrap Up

Wind down your meeting with a quick recap and prayer to end. Some families like to choose a unique way to close and encourage, so you can brainstorm your own ideas too!

Pointers for Creating Your Family Meeting Agenda

While that family meeting agenda above is a basic outline, you will want to consider a few other areas to help you best adapt the agenda to you family’s needs:

• Season of Life

Consider the ages of your children to help identify the amount of time that will be best for the agenda items. In young families we’ve worked with, we’ve seen even a 15-minute meeting still be highly effective. Be clear on the purpose and overall goal of the meeting, and that will help you use the time well.

• Family Goals

Family meetings should be dynamic. They are going to change even throughout the year based off the goals you are working on, so make sure you have clarity on those to help identify what agenda items are needed. Maybe you need to add more detail to the “Discussion” section so you can guide discussion purposefully, as an example.

• Test & Iterate

The beauty of a family meeting agenda is that you will always be learning, so keep this in mind as you start the process. Keep your own notes of what worked well and what didn’t. Get feedback from your family too and commit to continue working on the process. Over time, you’ll find your unique rhythm.

Get Started with Your Family Meeting

As you step into creating your family meeting, we encourage you to hold it with open hands. This isn’t about getting it right or achieving a particular standard. It’s about instilling a practice, and that will come with time. Commit to showing up and to learning. It won’t go perfect and you might even have resistance from your family members, but even that can be an opportunity for your family to grow. Welcome all the feedback because that is exactly the heart of a family meeting– you want everyone to be bought into growth.

The more you are able to engage, talk about what matters, and create a safe space for that, the more your family will have a framework for success. (Keep reading about the purpose of family meetings here for more insights!)